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Composed by: Nobuo Uematsu

Arranged by: Tsuyoshi Sekito, Kenichiro Fukui, Michio Okamiya

Track Listing;

The Rocking Grounds (Final Fantasy III)
Zeromus (Final Fantasy IV)
Vamo' Alla Flemenco (Final Fantasy IX)
Hunter's Chance (Final Fantasy IX)
Otherworld (Final Fantasy X)
Motoya's Cave (Final Fantasy I)
The Man With a Machine Gun (Final Fantasy VIII)
Maybe I'm A Lion (Final Fantasy VIII)
A Battle With Four Friends (Final Fantasy IV)
The Skies Above (Final Fantasy X)
Blue Blast - Winning The Rainbow

Okay, so take a pinch of Iron Maiden, a dash of Metallica, season this with a helping of Final Fantasy and you have... The Black Mages. The Black Mages return with a second CD - The Skies Above.

Production:

Being a re-mix CD, The Skies Above would really need to be expertly arranged. From the intro track the seemingly un-heard of "The Rocking Grounds" The Skies Above kicks off in terrific fashion with this perfectly arranged track. This leads you to think that the rest of the album will follow this excellent lead. This isn't entriely true. Okay, so for the record i think Uematsu is a master genious, those who have read one of my reviews prior will know this. But Uematsu shows that he also knows how to cover the tracks in ice, 'cause the train most certainly de-rails on track 6 "Motoya's Cave".

Sound Quality:

It's awesome, simple. Perfectly recorded all the way. Nothing else to put here.

The Music:

Right, so where was I? Ahh yes, Motoya's Cave. The track has the making of being great, the acousitc guitars are smooth and perfectly layered, progression is amazingly well paced, the base n synth co-exist in peace and harmany. Around 2 minutes in, however, things pick a little, but do we get an awesome Sekito guitar solo? or one of Fukui's Synth leads? Oh no... Senor Uematsu butts and and takes the song like a well made car and rams it head-on into a crash testing wall in slow motion. But enough of that, let me tell you about the good points... ohh the good points. It was "Maybe I'm a Lion" that lead me to the path of buying this disc, and man was i glad to have it when track 8 rolled around. What an awesome arrangement of a spectacular piece of music, the intro to the song gave me goosebumbs and they didn't reside 'till the song ended. To die for for guitar work and solos that give any Maiden fan a run for their money.

Then there is the other Final Fantasy VIII classic, The Man With The Machine Gun. This starts out with a crunching drum intro that leads to the underlaying Synth that starts us off, it also finishes up with segments from "The Legendary Beast". There are even 2 vocal trakcs tucked away in here. Otherworld, is now lead by female vocalist KAZCO. Her performance is mediocre at best, which is harsh. But never the less, I couldn't help but like them and let's face it, it's an improvment over the male vocalist from Final Fantasy X. "RAWR RAWR RA-RA-WAW-WAW AN OTHER WORLD RARW RARW WA"

By far the worse part of the CD is track 10 the title track, The Skies Above. The second vocal track here, courtesy of "Mr. Goo" The song starts off with with the piano intro in Final Fantasy X. Followed by a Metallica-esque riff, then... oh boy, then Mr. Goo picks up the mic and gives us a laughable performance. Seriously, this guy should have trouble looking in the mirror after his vocals got laced on a published recording. Mr. Goo, we won't forget you... for all the wrong reasons. This track is enjoyable toward to 5 minute marker though, when it starts getting reminiscent of Final Fantasy X and the spacey solo.

It does end on a high point though, with the medley, Blue Blast - Winning the Rainbow. This does what it is supposed to, give the CD a good finishing point while at the same time summing up what the Black Mages are about. Avid Final Fantasy players could pick out alot of FF music in this track, and it's so ending like, that i almost expected to see a line of credits roll down.

Originality:

A hard rocking, melodic Final Fantasy band doing exactly that. Find me another band like it and i'll extract my further comment. This is one of a kind.

Overall:

A great CD that i don't regret buying. It has it's moments (Coughs and points at Mr. Goo) but this is a solid CD that any fan of Final Fantasy or rock music will enjoy. It isn't perfect but it is a good CD with some astonishing guitar work courtesy of Tsuyoshi Sekito. If you find this cheap somewhere or even if you're curious and have the money, go for it.

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